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Subject to Revision. 

[TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF MINING ENGINEERS.] 



PROFESSIONAL JETHIGS. 

BY J? C. BAYLES, NEW YORK CITY. 

(Presidential Address, Pittsburgh Meeting, February, 1886.) 

Gentlemen of the Institute : Having availed myself somewhat 
liberally during the past two years of the latitude which is accorded 
the president in the selection of the topics presented in addresses 
from the Chair, I do not need to plead safe precedent as my warrant 
for devoting to the consideration of some of the questions in casu- 
istry the answers to which will be found to furnish a basis for a 
code of professional ethics, the address which marks the conclu- 
sion of my service in the dignified and honorable office to which, 
through your unmerited favor, I have been twice chosen. It is not 
asking too much of the engineer that his professional morality shall 
conform to higher standards than those which govern men who buy 
and sell with no other object than the getting of gain. The profes- 
sional man stands in a more confidential relation to his client than 
is supposed to exist between buyer and seller in trade. He is ne- 
cessarily more trusted, and has larger opportunities of betraying the 
confidence reposed in him than is offered the merchant or the busi- 
ness agent. For the reason that he cannot be held to the same strict 
accountability which law and usage establish in mercantile business, 
he is under a moral obligation to fix his own rules of conduct by 
high standards and conform to them under all circumstances. What- 
ever the measure of his professional success — whether wealth and 
reputation crown his career, or disappointment and poverty be his 
constant and unwelcome companions — no taint of suspicion should 
attach to any professional act or utterance. Not only should he be 
able to write above the wreck of bright hopes, " Honor alone 
remains," but upon his great and successful achievements should it 
be possible for others to inscribe the legend, " In honor wrought ; 
with honor crowned." 

It is frequently and confidently asserted that at no time in the 
history of the world were the standards of business honor so high as 
now. The prevalence of dishonesty, in one form or another, is held 

1 




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PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. y vJL 

to show simply that there is a great deal of moral weakness which is 
unequal to the strain to which principle is subjected in the keenness 
of business competition, and in the presence of the almost unlimited 
confidence which apparently characterizes commercial intercourse. 
The enormous volume of the daily dealings on 'Change, where a 
verbal agreement or a sign made and recognized in the midst of 
indescribable confusion, has all the binding force of a formal con- 
tract; the real estate and merchandise transactions effected on un- 
witnessed and unrecorded understandings; the certification of checks 
on the promise of deposits or collateral, and a hundred other evi- 
dences of confidence are cited as proofs that the accepted standards of 
business honor are high, and are kept so by public opinion. All 
of this is true in a certain limited sense; but the confidence which is 
the basis of all business creates opportunities for dishonesty which 
changes its shape with more than Protean facility when detected and 
denounced. The keenness of competition in all departments of pro- 
fessional and business enterprise presents a constant temptation to 
seize every advantage, fair or unfair, which promises immediate 
profit. It is unfortunately true that the successful cleverness which 
sacrifices honor to gain, is more easily condoned by public opinion 
than honest dullness which is caught in the snares laid for it by the 
cunning manipulators of speculation. The man who fails to deliver 
what he has bought, to meet his paper at maturity and make good 
the certifications of his banker, loses at once his business standing 
and is practically excluded from business competition; but if he 
keeps his engagements and is successful, the public is kindly blind 
to the agencies he may employ to depreciate what he wants to buy 
or impart a fictitious value to what he has to sell. Viewed from 
this standpoint, it may be questioned whether the accepted standards 
of business morality are not, after all, those fixed by the revised 
statutes. 

In so far as the engineer is brought in contact with the activities 
of trade, he cannot fail to be conscious of the fact that serious tempta- 
tions surround him. Such reputation as he has gained is assumed 
to have a market value, and the price is held out to him on every 
side. It should not be difficult for the conscientious engineer, 
jealous of his professional honor, to decide what is right and what is 
not. He does not need to be reminded that he cannot sell his in- 
dependence nor make merchandise of his good name. But as deli- 
cate problems in casuistry may mislead or confuse him, it is to be 
regretted that so little effort has been made to formulate a code of 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 3 

professional ethics which would help to right decisions those who 
cannot reach them unaided. 

Standing in the presence of so many of those who have dignified 
the profession of engineering, I should hesitate to express my views 
on this subject did I not believe that many earnest and right-minded 
young men in our active and associate membership will be glad to 
know what rules of conduct govern those whose example they 
would willingly follow, and how one not a practicing engineer, but 
with good opportunities of observation and judgment, would char- 
acterize practices which have been to some extent sanctioned by 
custom. To those who have yet to win the gilded spurs of profes- 
sional knighthood, but who cherish a high and honorable ambition, 
my suggestions are chiefly addressed. 

An ever-present stumbling block in the path of the young engi- 
neer is what is lightly spoken of as the "customary commission " — 
a percentage paid him on the price of machinery and supplies pur- 
chased or recommended by him. That manufacturers expect to pay 
commissions to engineers who are instrumental in effecting the sale 
of their products, is a striking proof that the standards of business 
morality are quite as low as I have assumed them to be: that engi- 
neers do not unite in indignant protests against the custom and 
denounce as bribe-givers and bribe-takers those who thus exchange 
services, shows that the iron has entered the souls of many who may 
be disposed to resent such plain terms as those in which I deem it 
my duty to describe transactions of this kind. 

The young man who is tendered a commission will naturally ask 
himself whether he can accept and retain it, and may, perhaps, 
reason somewhat in this way : " My professional advice was given 
without expectation of personal profit other than that earned in my 
fee, and it expressed my best judgment. The price at which the 
goods were purchased was that which every consumer must pay, 
and was not increased for my advantage. The transaction was satis- 
factor) T to buyer and seller, and was concluded when payment was 
made. I am now tendered a commission which I am at liberty to 
accept or to decline. If I decline it I lose something, my client 
gains nothing, and the remaining profit to the seller is greater than 
he expected by that amount. If I accept it I do my client no wrong. 
If it is the custom of manufacturers to pay commissions, it must be 
the custom of engineers to receive them ; and there is no reason why 
I should be supersensitive on a point long since decided by usage." 
This is false reasoning, based upon erroneous assumptions. Why 



4 PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 

do manufacturers pay commissions? Is it probable tjiey make it a 
part of their business policy to give something for nothing? Is it 
not certain that they expect an equivalent for every dollar thus dis- 
bursed, and that in paying the engineer a commission they are seek- 
ing to establish relations with him which shall warp his judgment 
and make him their agent ? It may be urged in the case of reputable 
manufacturers that they yield to this custom because other manufac- 
turers have established it, and that in following the pernicious ex- 
ample they have no other object than to equalize the influences 
tending to the formation of professional judgment. This reasoning 
does not change in the least the moral aspects of the question from 
the manufacturers' standpoint ; but what engineer with a delicate 
sense of professional honor could offer or hear such an explanation, 
without feeling the hot blush of shame suffuse his cheeks? The 
plain truth about the commission is that the manufacturer or dealer 
adds it to the selling price of his goods, and the buyer unconsciously 
pays the bribe designed to corrupt his own agent. Can an engineer 
receive and retain for his own use a commission thus collected from 
his client without a surrender of his independence, and, having sur- 
rendered that, can he conscientiously serve the client who seeks dis- 
interested advice and assistance in the planning and construction of 
work? 

It is possible, perhaps, for a man to dissociate his preferences from 
his interests ; so, also, is it possible for one to walk through fire and 
not scorch his garments ; but how few are able to do it ! The young 
man in professional life who begins by accepting commissions will 
soon find himself expecting and demanding them, and from that 
moment his professional judgment is as much for sale as pork in the 
shambles. I counsel the young man thus tempted to ask himself, 
Am I entitled to pay from the manufacturer who offers it ? If so, 
for what? If not, will my self-respect permit me to become his 
debtor for a gratuity to which I have no claim ? Does not this 
money belong to my client, as an overcharge unconsciously paid by 
him for my benefit? If I refuse it, can I not with propriety demand 
in future that the percentage which this commission represents shall 
be deducted in advance from the manufacturers' price, that my client 
may have the benefit of it ? If this is denied, can I resist the con- 
clusion that it is a bribe to command future services at my hands ? 
Is not the smile of incredulity with which the dealer receives my 
assurance that I can only take it for my client and hand it over to 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 5 

him, an insult to the profession, which, as a man of honor, I am 
bound to resent? 

Gentlemen, it is not true that custom sanctions the acceptance of 
commissions by the engineer. That it is much too general I will 
not deny, but there are very few men of recognized professional 
standing who would confess that they have yielded to the tempta- 
tion and retained for their own benefit the commissions received by 
them. I do not hesitate to give it as my opinion that the acceptance 
and retention of a commission is incompatible with a standard of 
professional honor to which every self-respecting engineer should 
seek to conform. Those who defend it as proper and right and 
plead the sanction of usage, are not the ones to whom the young 
engineer can safely go for counsel and advice. The most dangerous 
and least reputable of all the competition he will encounter in an 
attempt to make an honest living in the practice of his profession, 
is that of the engineer who charges little for professional services 
and expects to be paid by those whose goods are purchased on his 
recommendation. 

With equal emphasis would I characterize as unprofessional the 
framing of specifications calling for patented or controlled specialties? 
when to deceive the client bids are invited. I am well aware that 
it is easier to procure drawings and specifications from manufacturers 
than to make them. Many manufacturers are very willing to fur- 
nish them, but those who do are careful to so frame the specifications 
that they can secure the contracts at prices to include the cost of the 
professional work for which the engineer is also paid. There is 
nothing unprofessional in recommending a patented article or pro- 
cess, if it be, in the judgment of the engineer, the best for the pur- 
pose to be accomplished ; but he will do it openly and with the 
courage of his convictions. The young engineer should, I think, 
have no difficulty in recognizing the important difference which 
inheres in the methods by which a given result is accomplished. 

In the relation of engineers to contractors, there is many a snare 
and pitfall for the unwary feet of the beginner. In superintending 
the construction of work the engineer may err on the side of un- 
reasonable strictness, or on that of improper leniency. If so dis- 
posed he can involve any contractor in loss and do him great wrong, 
but it more often happens that the engineer is forced to assume a 
defensive attitude and to resist influences too strong for a man of 
average courage and strength of will, especially if his experience in 
charge of work is limited. He should enter upon the discharge of 



6 PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 

his delicate and responsible duties with a desire to do impartial 
justice between client and contractor. He is warranted in assuming 
that his judgment and discretion are his chief qualifications for the 
position of supervising engineer, and that all specifications are de- 
signed to be in some measure elastic, since the conditions to be en- 
countered in carrying them out cannot possibly be known in advance. 
He should not impose unnecessary and unreasonable requirements 
upon the contractor, even if empowered to do so by the letter of the 
specifications. The danger, however, is principally in the opposite 
direction. Frequently the engineer has all he can do to hold the 
contractor to a faithful performance of the spirit of his agreement. 
He is bullied, misled, deceived, and sometimes openly defied. He 
must constantly defend himself against charges impeaching his per- 
sonal integrity and his professional intelligence. The contractor can 
usually succeed in making it appear that he is the victim of persecu- 
tion, and especially in public work he is likely to have more influ- 
ence than the engineer with those for whom the work is done. It 
often happens that the engineer, defeated and discouraged, gives up 
the unequal battle. From that moment he is of no further use as 
an engineer, and if he remains for an hour in responsible charge of 
work he cannot control he rates his fee as more desirable than a 
reputation unsullied by the stain of dishonor. He has a right to 
decline a conflict for which he feels unequal, but he has no right to 
consent to a sacrifice of the interests of his client while he is paid to 
protect them. The questions of professional ethics arising out of the 
relations between the engineer and the contractor are much too com- 
plex to be decided by an inflexible rule of professional conduct, but 
the engineer cannot make a mistake in refusing to remain in re- 
sponsible charge of work when, by remaining, he must give consent 
to that which his judgment tells him involves a wrong to his client. 
With equal confidence may it be asserted that the engineer who 
secretly participates in the profits of the contractor, whatever the 
arrangement by which such participation is brought about, sacrifices 
his professional standing. 

In making reports for contingent fees or fees of contingent value, 
the young engineer needs to exercise great discretion. This may 
be done without impropriety if done openly ; but it is safe to assume 
that few opportunities will come to the young man with a reputa- 
tion still to make, in which he can do clean and creditable work on 
any such basis. The engineer called upon to make a report for a 
fee in stock which depends for its value upon the effect of his report 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 7 

in creating confidence in the public mind, takes a fearful risk. 
However honest he may be, he places himself in a position in which 
the danger is obvious and the advantage uncertain. If, having a 
contingent interest in the result of his work, he is afraid to say so 
in his report, he may safely consider his position unprofessional and 
unsafe. Contingent fees are a delusion and a snare, and in making 
it a rule to refuse them the young engineer will be likely to gain 
more than he loses. 

Reports intended to influence the public upon subjects concerning 
which the engineer knows himself unqualified to speak with au- 
thority, are to be classed with other forms of charlatanry. No man 
can claim infallibility of judgment, nor is this expected of the engi- 
neer, whatever his position ; but those who pay for professional 
services have a right to demand that the man who assumes to speak 
as an expert shall have the special knowledge which will command 
for his opinion the respect of those who are well informed. I con- 
sider it unprofessional for the engineer to enter upon the discharge 
of any duties for which he knows he is not qualified, if for the satis- 
factory discharge of those duties he must assume a knowledge he does 
not possess. There has been an immense amount of unprofessional 
work done in the field of reporting, and many reputations have been 
blasted by a failure to draw nice distinctions in questions of pro- 
fessional honor. The young engineer cannot be too careful in this 
matter, and he will be fortunate if with all the prudence he can ex- 
ercise he is able to avoid disaster. Of a professional reputation 
dependent upon the accuracy as well as the honesty of reports 
ordered and used for speculative purposes, one may say, as a marine 
underwriter lately said of an unseaworthy steamer, that he " would 
not insure her against sinking, from Castle Carden to Sandy Hook 
with a cargo of shavings." 

In the matter of expert service in the courts I am disposed to 
speak guardedly. I see no reason why an engineer should not 
willingly go upon the witness-stand to give expert testimony if he 
has made proper preparation and has an honest conviction that his 
testimony can be given with a conscientious regard for the obliga- 
tions of his oath as a witness. It is his duty and his privilege to de- 
fend his opinions, for the man without opinions which he is prepared 
to defend is worthless as a witness, and cannot properly be called an 
expert. But the conscientious engineer has no right to appear as a 
partisan of anything except what he believes to be the truth. If he 
finds himself parrying the questions of the cross-examination with a 



8 PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 

view to concealing the truth; if he realizes that he is a partisan of 
the side which retains him, and feels a temptation to earn his fee 
by falsehood, concealment or evasion, he can be sure that he is in a 
position in which no man of honor has a right to be. The abuses 
of expert testimony in civil and criminal suits are many and grave ; 
its uses are perhaps exaggerated, and the witness stand is not an 
inviting field for the young engineer seeking a satisfactory career. 

How far an engineer can properly use for his own advantage infor- 
mation gained in the discharge of duties of a confidential nature, is a 
question at once delicate and difficult. He cannot help knowing 
what he has learned, and his knowledge is his capital. He must 
be governed in this matter by the considerations which influence 
men of honor in the ordinary relations of life. Stock and real estate 
operations on confidential information which belongs to one's prin- 
ciples, are usually in violation of the simplest rules of professional 
honor. The manager who advises his brokers by telegraph and his 
principals by mail cannot, I think, claim to have a very delicate 
sense of right and wrong. He can judge his own conduct by the 
standard he would apply in judging like infidelity on the part of 
those employed by him. 

In professional criticism of professional work it is easy to fall into 
ways which are wrong, morally and professionally. Criticism 
which is designed merely to advertise the critic serves no good 
purpose, and savors of charlatanry or something worse. Only a 
small proportion of the current critical literature of engineering has 
any other object than to help the critics to climb into notoriety on 
the shoulders of the abler and wiser men with whom they are 
brought into competition. I regard as unprofessional every effort 
to discredit honest and intelligent work, and every form of disguised 
advertising designed to give an engineer a greater prominence than 
he has earned by successful and creditable work, or is entitled to 
claim by virtue of fitness for more than average professional achieve- 
ments. 

It is neither possible nor desirable to catalogue the unprofessional 
practices which in one way or another come to the notice of those 
observant of current happenings in the several departments of engi- 
neering. It is the contention of some that right and wrong are 
relative terms, applying to no action or line of conduct save as it is 
considered in relation to coincident and contingent circumstances. 
I will not deny that this may be true of all professional acts, but 
the impossibility of an arbitrary classification under the heads right 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 9 

and wrong, honorable and dishonorable, need not make it difficult 
for a man to formulate a code of professional ethics by which his 
own conduct shall be governed. There are certain broad ethical 
principles which never change. One is, that a man cannot serve 
two masters having conflicting interests and be faithful to each. 
Another is, that, however skillfully one may juggle words to conceal 
meanings or evade responsibility, if the intent to deceive is there he 
lies. Professional ethics are no different from the ethics of the Dec- 
alogue; they are specific applications of the rules of conduct which 
have governed enlightened and honorable men in all ages and in all 
walks of life. It is only when the moral sense is blunted, or temp- 
tation presents itself in some new and unrecognized form, that it is 
difficult to draw the line between right and wrong. I am aware 
that a delicate sense of honor often comes between a man and his 
opportunities of profit, and that a fine sensitiveness is rarelv appre- 
ciated at its value by those who employ professional service. I know 
that in this busy world, men of affairs do not always stop to weigh 
motives, and that confident assurance often commands respect, while 
modest merit is distrusted. But I do not know that a man can sell 
his honor for a price and retain thereafter the right to stand erect in 
the presence of his fellows. I do not know that any engineer can 
make for himself a creditable and satisfactory career of whom it can- 
not be said that, whatever his mistakes or successes, his failures or 
triumphs, he has held his professional honor above suspicion. 

Since this address was written, my attention has been called to 
the fact that at the Bethlehem Meeting, in August, 1871, Mr. R. P. 
Rothwell presented a paper on " Professional Morality." This 
paper was not printed in the Transactions, or mentioned with Mr. 
Rothwell's other papers in the general index. If time had permitted, 
I should have selected another theme for discussion ; but as Mr. 
Rothwell's able paper is found only in an early volume of The 
Engineering and Mining Journal, is not easily accessible, and has 
probably never been seen by the younger members, for whom my 
remarks were especially intended, it can scarcely be considered a 
prior publication of the Institute. So far as Mr. Rothwell's paper 
relates to the subjects treated in the above address, it presents views 
generally similar to those I have expressed, a coincidence which is 
not at all surprising. I have not, however, had occasion to quote 
his paper, as I am indebted to it only in the pleasure I experienced 
in reading it subsequent to the delivery of the address. 

J. C. B. 



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